In the world of retro gaming there have been a lot of strange and weird stories throughout history. None however live up to the story of E.T. the Extra Terrestrial for the Atari 2600.
In 1982 Atari decided to go out on a limb and try something new. Their big idea was to create a game based around a blockbuster film. Trying a cross marketing scheme was a new idea for Atari, and a considerable amount of money was thrown at director Stephen Speilberg for the use of the main character in his film E.T.
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| This game has been so badly panned, it was considered one of the top causes of the video game crash of 1983 |
The issue was that there was very limited time to create a game and still have it out on time to coincide with the release of the film. With only a handful of weeks to build a game, the developer conceptualized a difficult game where you collect pieces of a telephone hidden in wells throughout a large world setting. Speilberg wasn't crazy about the idea and suggested they did something similar to Pac-Man. Since Atari ponied up the money for the usage of the name they decided they didn't want to rehash an old game but create a new gaming experience.
The result was a game that has been dubbed by some, "the worst video game in history." While that is probably a far fetched claim, it was a laughably bad game not really worth reviewing. While it wasn't completely unplayable, there really wasn't a resource like the internet for handy game tips. At the time and it wasn't terribly easy game to figure out the objectives of the game like that. And what was supposed to be one of the biggest video game releases ever, turned out to be a pile of junk with a picture of E.T. on it.
While the movie didn't suffer from it, the video game industry did. Atari suffered a huge loss, and the game was widely considered a contributing factor to an industry wide crash in 1983.
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| The front gate of the Alamogordo landfill that is rumored to be the burial site of the E.T. video game |
While the game by no means was considered legendary, the story of the unused cartridges is. The legend of those cartridges is that they were unceremoniously buried in a landfill in the desert on the outskirts of Alamogordo, New Mexico. Atari themselves have neither confirmed or denied this story to be true, making for an urban legend that has lived to this day.
While the area in question is in close proximity to Roswell, New Mexico which of course is home to many conspiracy theories about UFOs and aliens. Alamogordo is also a short drive from where the world's first nuclear bomb test was detonated. You would think that an area with such a strange place in history would be immune to being known for something as simple as being a dumping ground for an unsuccessful video game, but the legend lingers on.
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| This is the marker commemorating the site of the very first nuclear bomb test, mere miles from the alleged site of the E.T. cartridge burial |
Soon a team of Canadian filmmakers are going to try to prove the legend to be true. The team at Fuel Entertainment have secured a permit to search the landfill in question. They hope to create a documentary about the legend, and see once and for all if it is true. The team will search for a six month period hoping to dig up the holy grail of video game legends.
Local officials of Alamogordo are hoping this excavation will lead to exposure for their town. All I know is I am excited to see what is turned up in the near future.
